Former Longmont firefighter Lynn Huff dies hiking in Maui

Times-Call staff and wire reports

Posted:
02/04/2013 04:45:08 PM MST

Updated:
02/04/2013 05:18:52 PM MST

Retired Longmont fire division chief Lynn Huff, right, died Saturday during a hiking accident in Maui, Hawaii. Huff is pictured in this photo next to his wife, Barbara. The photo ran along with a 40th wedding anniversary announcement published this June in the Boulder Daily Camera. (File photo )

WAILUKU, Hawaii -- A retired Longmont firefighter and Boulder resident died Saturday while hiking a trail on Maui, police said Monday.

According to The Maui News, the Maui Police Department said in a news release that officers were called to the scene and hiked about a mile down the trail toward the springs, where they met up with Huff's wife, who showed them where her husband fell. Fire and emergency medical personnel also responded. Police reported that Huff had fallen 20 to 25 feet. It had been raining throughout the past week and the ground where he fell to his death was saturated, police said.

Huff retired in 2010 as a division chief after 32 years with the Longmont Fire Department. Before joining the Longmont department in 1978, Huff had spent four years with the Cherryvale Fire Protection District, now called the Rocky Mountain Fire District. Huff remained a volunteer firefighter with the district, which serves parts of Boulder and Jefferson counties.

Huff was a multiple Public Safety Awards winner and for a time in the mid-2000s served as interim manager of Longmont's Emergency Communications Center.

His retirement came just before his wife, Barbara, retired after 25 years with the Boulder County Sheriff's Office.

An announcement of the couple's 40th wedding anniversary that was published last June in the Boulder Daily Camera noted that the couple "enjoy hiking, camping, sailing, golf, fishing and travel."

According to the announcement, the couple married May 31, 1972, in Phoenix, Ariz. and then moved to Boulder in 1973 to attend the University of Colorado at Boulder. They have a son, Christopher, of Westminster, and a granddaughter, Kendall Rose.

Assistant Longmont fire chief Rick Vandervelde called Huff "a great mentor" and said that he touched many lives across the Front Range and nationally.

"I think everybody in the department would say they were better because they had worked with him. ... He took care of people on the job and off the job," he said.

He also praised Huff for his ability to stay clam in a chaotic situation.